Although Donoso is known primarily as a novelist, he has also published a total of seventeen short stories, all of which were written between 1950 and 1962. These artistically drawn, psychologically penetrating studies of middle-class mores deserve critical acclaim for their intrinsic literary merit, but they are especially important here because they contain in embryonic form many of the thematic preoccupations developed at greater length in the novels.

["China"] focuses nostalgically on the past as well as the inevitable loss of innocence and imagination that characterize adulthood….

"Veraneo" (Summertime) also sets forth the loss-of-innocence theme, but even more important, it probes the complexities of human relationships and suggests the demise of one of man's most basic institutions, the family. The plot is sketched mainly through the actions and dialogues of adolescents and servants spending a summer at a beach resort. (p. 34)

Domination, dependence, and the fusion of identities in ["Veraneo...